This disclosure relates generally to aircraft cockpit displays and more particularly, to methods and systems for displaying moving maps and related information on aircraft cockpit displays.
At least some known aircraft include cockpit displays that are controlled by an information system. Cockpit displays include the basic displays that are supplied with the aircraft, and other add-on displays which vary in their degree of integration with the physical aircraft structure and aircraft systems.
To promote safety and efficiency, electronic moving maps in general, and an electronic airport moving map (EAMM) in particular, may be provided on cockpit displays. The EAMM provides a map of the airport surface with an ownship position depiction, and may include cleared taxi route, normal operational information, for example, ATIS/NOTAM information, runway status, runway exit info, traffic, alerting, and other features. On approach and during landing/rollout, the EAMM may provide runway related information such as runway status and related traffic, traffic conflicts, braking, and runway exit information. However, manual crew display range control to view/display approach runway and related operational information distracts from the primary crew responsibilities of flying the aircraft, navigation, and communication, and introduces new and undesirable crew workload. In addition, the discrete/fixed display range selections currently typically provided do not allow optimum display of approach runway and other important/useful display information.
Current implementations of navigation display and EAMM display range selection are typically in whole number increments for example, 640, 320, 160, 80, 40, 20, 10, 5, 2, 1, and 0.5 nautical mile ranges such that intermediate display range selections between the whole number increments are not utilized. Further, the manual setting of the display range may preclude display of traffic, areas or other objects of interest, or other information beyond the display range of the EAMM 114 that may be important to safety and/or situational awareness.
Methods and systems are needed for cockpit situational awareness displays that provide an optimum view of the area surrounding the vehicle and that facilitate reducing display management user workload.